Exhibitions
Laid-Back
Group Show with MA Painting and MFA students from Chelsea, CSM, Camberwell and Wimbledon, UAL
13 – 14 March 2019
Biscuit Factory, Bermondsey, London
Laid- Back (Exhibition Statement)
One might interpret the title of the exhibition Laid-Back as affable, breezy, devil-may-care, easygoing, happy-go-lucky, low-pressure, mellow. Or by words related to the theme as carefree, casual, dégagé, lackadaisical, nonchalant, unaffected, unconcerned, unfussy, unperturbed, untroubled and unworried.
In the hustle and bustle of cities, we live fast paced lives. Spurred by materialism in a global world, this heady pace makes us frustrated, self-closing, anxious and fretful. We would rather not live in a hurry, and find ourselves caught in a trap with the mundane requiring attention, like arriving on time.
Laid-back takes on a musical form that allows audiences to feel easygoing, unpressurised and nonchalant, maintaining dignity. The tempo of this sort of music, in our view, mimics a kind of life in which we follow our own pace regardless of industrialised time schedules. By creating an enjoyable life environment, it gives us the time and space to reflect on the condition of our work-life balance. We hope that this relaxed and flexible atmosphere transfers to all who visit the exhibition.
Written by Daniel Xu and Jacqui Chapman
Politics Disrupts Utopia 1, Oil, Acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 85 x 85 cm
Squeezed
Interim Show
The Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust, London
Friday 3 – Sunday 5 May 2019
We curated this exhibition over two days. The second day, when there were fewer of us, although we didn’t agree on everything, we experimented more with decisions. My idea to hang one of Mai’s tiny planet paintings alongside Yenfei’s large draped canvas, I thought worked well. We didn’t do this in the end and Sarah Kate Wilson asked why not, being the invited curator at the exhibition crit. She thought it was a good idea! When it is your own painting it seemed easier to hang it imaginatively, to take bigger risks. Mine worked well high up as memory is hard to pin down and is somewhat out of reach. I enjoyed working together with Rick, Jeremy, Adam and Caroline and learnt so much from Geraint. We hung Gabi’s large painting low down as “she” was on all fours with the monkey. You had to get down to their level, which was intimate, to see the detail of the relationship between them.
Koyaanisqatsi
Life out of balance
MA Painting exhibition organised and curated by Chris Dix
Wimbledon College of Arts Reception
8 -15 May 2019
Scan, Acrylic on cotton pressed paper, 68 x 57 cm
Chelsea Art Society 72nd Annual Open Exhibition
Thursday 13- Monday 17 June 2019
Main Hall, Chelsea Old Town Hall
Successful first exhibition in the CAS Open having sold two small beach abstract paintings.
Competitions
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 2019
Shortlisted
Children of Paradise, Canoe, based on J.M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron, “lives passed within walled gardens guarded by bulldogs”. Acrylic on chalk ground 25 x 25 x 6cm
Children of Paradise, Birthday Party, based on J.M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron, “children of paradise, blonde, innocent, shining with angelic light, soft as putti” Acrylic on chalk ground, 14 x 14 x 6 cm
MA Painting Degree Show
5-12 September, 2019
Series of 3 paintings about escape from violence in post-apartheid gated communities of South Africa. They are large 2m paintings which combine silkscreen and painting and use similar elements to dramatise voyeurism. They were produced to create a series of paintings as if an edition, akin to a print edition and were a site specific response to allocated exhibition space in the large beamed sculpture studio. The small swimming pool is enclosed in a secret ‘paradise’ and the girl is unaware of our presence.
The film Rainbird uses water as a reflective abstract vehicle and is supported by an equally abstract Zulu soundtrack. This is about our historical attachment to land, and my mother’s specifically to her childhood farm in Natal. The realisation at the end of the film, which is made from one single film clip, is that this is not Africa but a British landscaped garden with a narrow Box-edged reflective pool. It includes my experience as an emigrant from violence in a land I once belonged in.
Jacqui Chapman 